UNM Department of Justice Press Conference Quotes

April 22, 2016

Robert Frank, President
“Nothing is more important than making our campus a safe campus for our students and the people that work on this campus. We believe we can always improve how the University responds to issues that appear on our campus and we continuously work to improve our processes so that they are fair and equitable to all parties involved.”

“The report is a snapshot—we don’t believe it is the best methodology to understand what is happening on our campus. We believe that a longitudinal methodology would be much more useful—it would follow the campus over time.”

“We don’t believe the report represents the very intense efforts the University of New Mexico has undertaken to improve our processes to improve that way we have looked out for the safety of students on campus.”

“Our strongest object is with their conclusion that this is a hostile environment. If you look at the fine print, their definition of hostile environment is if one event happens on our campus. By that definition virtually every university in American has a hostile campus.”

“We believe the report is not scientific—it’s based on anecdotal data, it is not factual and we believe it is not accurate.”

“We believe their results are disheartening in the sense that they don’t give our police and Office of Equal Opportunity credit for the massive efforts they have undertaken to improve their work and their results.”

“We want our campus to be the safest campus in America and we will do everything we can to make it the safest campus.”

“We are going to sit down and look at the report— look at every recommendation and begin implementing those recommendations as quickly as we can. We will have a full-out effort to do that as fast as our staff can work on it. We will meet with the DOJ at the earliest possible date to begin a dialogue with them about the change we can make.”

Heather Cowan, Title IX coordinator, Office of Equal Opportunity
"The average length of the Title IX investigation is now 104 days. We are working to get more resources and to make improvements in our processes."

"We've really looked at how to implement and grow our policies and processes. We are looking for ways to move forward."

"This was just a snapshot of our campus environment."

Jenna Crabb, Interim Dean of Students
“It’s our main imperative to make this campus a safe and conducive learning environment.”

“When the (initial) Department of Justice report came out, we were already in the process of revamping initiatives and policies—one of the main missions of the Dean of Student’s is making our campus feel safe and comfortable for students to exceed in their learning and their career goals.”

Lisa Lindquist, program manager, DOS
“If a student comes to us and they want to remain confidential, we would work with them to explain what their options are, and make sure if they’re having issue with class that we’re working with faculty. We also work with students living arrangements and refer them to campus community partners, like the rape crises center, for additional support and counseling resources.“

“We are trying to be helpful in the Advocacy Center—if you are going through the administrative process of the Office of Equal Opportunity, we will serve as an advocate going to meetings with you, make sure you are feeling safe and comfortable so you can move through the process while getting the support you need.”

“The Lobo Advocacy Center and the University is really trying to increase awareness of how people report and what that looks like. We are implementing Campus Clarity, an online training that will be required of all students to take by the end of fall. We’re really trying to amp up education and awareness.”